


That Ashen Kind of Silence

by azenki



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, hhh this isnt a nice fic, idk man read it if you want to, it's kind of angsty but also not, its weird, warning: mentions of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:00:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24505060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azenki/pseuds/azenki
Summary: As the hours pass, and the courtyard gets colder, Zuko falls into a trance. The fire never falters, even though he’s never held a flame this long before. It stays steady and bright and burning, and it chases away the chill.Or: Zuko holds vigil. Again, and again, and again.
Comments: 76
Kudos: 591





	That Ashen Kind of Silence

**Author's Note:**

> i...have no excuses. i was MEANT to be studying and ended up writing this instead?? 
> 
> Warning: mentions of minor character deaths (and, towards the end, more major character deaths).

Zuko is eleven when he holds vigil for the first time.

It doesn’t feel like a proper vigil. It doesn’t even last all night; it only lasts an hour. Even with him and Mother and Azula and Father all holding a flame, it still doesn’t feel like enough.

Ba Sing Se is a long way from the palace. If they want to lead Lu Ten’s spirit home, then they’ll have to hold their lights for much longer than an hour.

Father’s flame goes out the moment the hour is up. Azula’s follows immediately after. They stand, stretching, and leave the courtyard without saying so much as a word. The servants go with them, though a few stragglers linger to watch over the Princess and her son.

Zuko keeps kneeling. He doesn’t think he could get up if he tried. The fire in his hands pulses like a tiny beating heart, and he can’t help but wonder if Lu Ten really  _ does  _ see it. If he’s following it, right now. If he’s coming home.

If he’s coming back to Zuko.

Mother kneels beside him, but her flame isn’t  _ hers.  _ She’s holding a torch, small and golden and ornamental, because nonbenders can’t hold fire. As the sun sinks beneath the horizon, her torch flickers and goes out.

She rises slowly, but Zuko doesn’t follow her. When she puts a hand on his shoulder, questioning, he shakes his head.

“Lu Ten needs me,” he whispers, his voice cracked and hoarse. “I think —I think I’ll stay here. For the night.”

Mother sighs quietly, but she doesn’t say anything. She just bends down to press a kiss to his cheek, then sweeps out of the courtyard with her torch tucked in her robes.

As the hours pass, and the courtyard gets colder, Zuko falls into a trance. The fire never falters, even though he’s never held a flame this long before. It stays steady and bright and burning, and it chases away the chill.

The servants bring him dinner, but he doesn’t eat. Eating would require using his hands, and they’re occupied. He  _ could  _ ask the servants to feed him, but he doesn’t, even when his stomach starts to growl. Mostly because it would be embarrassing, but also because he feels like it would be unfair to Lu Ten.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he does. He wakes up just before sunrise with a blanket draped over his shoulders, and he looks down to find a tiny, orange flame still cupped between his hands.

He’s never held fire while sleeping before. He wonders if he’s meant to sleep during vigil, then decides it doesn’t matter. Lu Ten wouldn’t mind.

Lu Ten is the first person Zuko ever holds vigil for, but he certainly isn’t the last.

* * *

Zuko’s second vigil comes barely two days after his first. Lu Ten is dead, and Grandfather’s dead too, and Mother’s just...gone. She’s  _ gone.  _

He does it at the foot of his bed. He kneels against the wooden floor and presses his forehead into his mattress, clasping his hands together and watching as fire bleeds between his fingers.

This vigil is nothing like his first. There is no hour-long mourning in the royal courtyard. There is no falling asleep in the cold. There is no one there but Zuko, who closes his eyes and waits for the sun to rise.

Zuko’s second vigil is a quiet, childish thing, and he hopes against all hope that it works. Vigils are meant to lead people home, after all, and he wants his mother back.

It doesn’t work. Maybe nonbenders can’t see the fire.

* * *

The next time Zuko holds vigil, he’s angry and scared and uncertain, and he’s staring at the remains of the Western airbenders.

His wound hasn’t even begun healing. He’s still wearing that stupid cloth patch over his eye, and his hair’s been shaved back, and he’s got no honour at all. Father had made that very clear.

The Avatar hasn’t been seen for a hundred years, but Zuko  _ knows  _ he can find them. The Water Tribe Avatar had never been incarnated, and if they had then they’d done nothing. He doubts the Water Tribes would’ve let their Avatar sit back while a war was fought, so that leaves him with only one option: air. The Avatar is an airbender who’s been in hiding for the last hundred years.

What a coward.

Nevertheless, Zuko is looking for them. So he’s starting with the Air Temples, because an airbender would want to be in an air temple, right? The Western Air Temple is barely two days’ ride away, so he takes his uncle and his crew and climbs down the side of a cliff to a temple no one’s lived in for one hundred years.

Well.

No one’s lived in it for one hundred years, but that doesn’t mean no one’s  _ there. _

Most of the skeletons are pushed up against the walls, like the Air Nomads had been cornered up until the moment they died. Zuko’s only grateful that it’s been so long that there’s nothing left but bones and dust; he doesn’t think he could’ve handled seeing that much rotting flesh.

And then he realises: the skeletons are  _ still here.  _ They were never buried or laid to rest.

_ (Of course they weren’t,  _ snipes part of his brain.  _ What kind of soldier buries their enemy’s body? _

_ An honourable one,  _ replies the other part.  _ One who realises that there’s no one left on the enemy’s side to do it instead.) _

If their bodies were never buried, then their spirits must still be restless. And everyone who’s ever told Zuko anything about the Air Nomads has said that they were savages, that they were barbarians, that they dumped their own children to be raised by strangers.

But they’d also said that the Air Nomads had been a formidable military force. And, looking around the temple, Zuko sees no weapons. No armour.

No soldiers.

He’s moving before he realises what he’s doing. He reaches for the nearest skeleton and winces as it all but comes apart in his hands. Behind him, the crew shift uneasily, and Uncle clears his throat.

“Prince Zuko,” he says, “what are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” Zuko replies honestly. And he really doesn’t. But his arms keep moving of their own accord, carefully scooping up the nomad’s bones.

The words fall out of his mouth before he can stop them. “Help me bury them.”

The silence is deafening. Finally, Uncle says, “What?”

“Help me bury them,” Zuko repeats, standing up with an armful of bones. “They’ve been left out here for a hundred years. Help me bury them.”

He doesn’t look at Uncle, but he thinks he sees the old man’s shoulders straighten with something that looks like pride. Which is impossible, because no one can be proud of a boy with no honour.

“Of course, Prince Zuko,” Uncle says gently, stepping forward to take the next skeleton. One by one, the crew shuffles forwards, picking up the remains of the dead.

They carry the Air Nomads’ skeletons up to the forest, where the soil is soft enough for burial. They have no shovels, so Zuko digs the graves with his own two hands. His crew wavers for a second, hesitating, before they stoop to do the same.

When they’re done, the sun is setting. The crew makes camp; Zuko does not.

He holds vigil.

He kneels at the edge of the cliff and holds out his hands like a supplicant. Fire, weak and sputtering, appears in his palms. It’s the most pathetic fire he’s ever seen, and yet he still flinches back when he sees it. His left eye gives a throb of pain.

But the fire doesn’t go out. He stays kneeling for hours. Uncle pours him a cup of tea. He doesn’t drink it. The crew get out their meat rations and begin to cook dinner. He doesn’t eat it.

He just holds vigil, alone on the edge of the Western Air Temple, and prays the Nomads don’t hate him too much to follow his fire.

* * *

He does it again at the Northern Temple. 

And the Eastern. 

And the Southern. 

In every single temple, there are skeletons and ash. So, in every single temple, Zuko does his best to lead them home.

* * *

When Uncle lies snoring on the other side of the raft, Zuko quietly gets to his feet.

It’s only been a day since the failed Northern Siege, and there are so many bodies. Their raft floats through them still. The Avatar may be a pacifist twelve-year-old boy, but the Ocean Spirit most certainly is  _ not. _

Zuko doesn’t think the Avatar even realises how many people he’s killed. All he sees is the Northern Tribe, still safe and sound and standing.

Everyone forgets that there are two sides in a war. And yes, the Fire Nation is the attacker, but—

But their people are still  _ people,  _ and people always die.

So Zuko folds his knees beneath him and lights a fire in his hands. It’s pale and weak in the light of the newly-reborn moon, but it’s there. 

He hopes the soldiers can see it. And, if some childish, naive part of him hopes that even  _ Zhao  _ can see it…

Well. Two can keep a secret, if one of them’s the moon.

* * *

When Zuko returns from Ba Sing Se, he shuts himself in his room and stares down at his hands.

He doesn’t hold a vigil for the Avatar. Not really.

He lights a candle instead of making his own flame. It’s a nonbender’s vigil, shameful for a firebender to do, but if he’s right…

Well, if he’s right, then the Avatar doesn’t need a vigil. Only dead people need vigils, and there’s every chance that the Avatar isn’t dead.

But if he  _ is _ —if he is, then yes. He’ll need a vigil.

So Zuko gives him one. It’s a shameful vigil, a dishonourable vigil, but a vigil nonetheless.

* * *

Zuko’s dinner is washed down with some water and a healthy dose of dread. No one else seems to have realised—they’re all busy talking and laughing and exchanging stories over the fire. He can’t be mad at them; it makes sense, after all, that they’d be so excited. Sokka and Katara haven’t seen their father since he was taken prisoner, and now that he’s here, they want nothing more than to spend time with him. And the other girl—Suki—she’s their friend, too. 

So, yeah. It makes sense.

But the fact remains that none of them even  _ think  _ to worry about Mai. Sokka had called her their saviour, told the rest of the gang about how she’d saved their butts, but apart from that?

Apart from that, no one’s even said her name.

Zuko wonders if they know how much Mai gave up for them. Probably not. They don’t know Azula like he does.

Which is why, when he finishes eating, he sets his bowl aside and stands without saying a word. No one pays him any attention, until he walks over to the edge of the temple and sits down, legs dangling over the canyon and back turned to the fire.

Then  _ everyone’s  _ paying him attention.

Zuko ignores them. He closes his eyes, breathes in and out, and lets a fire bloom between his hands.

“Uh, Zuko?” Sokka sounds vaguely concerned. “What are you doing?”

“Holding vigil,” he replies curtly. He doesn’t know if the Water Tribe does vigils, and frankly, right now, he doesn’t really care. What matters is that the Fire Nation  _ does  _ do vigils, and Mai is— _ was _ —Fire Nation.

“Vigil?” Aang echoes. He sounds very, very young and very, very small. “But—aren’t vigils for…?”

“Dead people,” Zuko supplies, and a heavy silence falls upon the temple like the closing lid of a tomb. “Yes.”

The silence weighs heavier, until Hakoda breaks it with a quiet, “Who?”

“Mai,” Zuko says dully, watching as the fire in his hands moves with his breath. “And Ty Lee, maybe. I’m not sure what she would’ve done.”

“Mai?” Zuko can almost  _ hear  _ the blood draining from Sokka’s face. “But she was fine! We saw her, she was fine—”

“She betrayed  _ Azula,”  _ Zuko snaps. The fire flickers for a moment, and he forces his breathing to even out. “No one betrays Azula and lives. Well, except for me, but you saw her at the prison. She was there to kill me.”

_ “Kill  _ you?” Toph’s voice is uncharacteristically shrill. “Like— _ kill  _ kill you? Not arrest you?”

“Kill,” Zuko says. “Murder. Execute. Whatever you want to call it.”

For a long handful of moments, no one speaks. Zuko closes his eyes.

Then, there comes the soft pitter-patter of footsteps that he’s come to recognise as Aang’s. The Avatar sits down next to him, like it’s a perfectly normal thing to do.

Zuko cracks open his eye. “What are you doing.”

Aang mimics his position, cupping his hands together in his lap. Between them, a tiny fire flickers to life.

“I’m holding vigil,” Aang says simply. 

When Zuko meets his eyes, he doesn’t flinch away. He holds Zuko’s gaze, eyes stubborn and grey.

Something eases in Zuko’s chest, just a little. He gives Aang a slow, final nod, then turns back to face out towards the canyon, closing his eyes.

Beside him, Aang exhales and shifts a little, getting into a more comfortable position. Zuko stays stiff-backed and still, listening to the soft rustling sound of fabric on stone.

Together, he and Aang hold vigil through the night.

* * *

Zuko holds his first public vigil on the first day of autumn after the war. He kneels at the head of the royal courtyard, clad in simple red robes. He doesn’t stand on the dais. He doesn’t wear his crown. On a day like today, Fire Lord is a title that no one wants to claim.

It’s the first national Day of Mourning. The Fire Nation already has a festival for paying respects to their own dead, but this Day of Mourning is dedicated entirely to someone else.

Namely, the Air Nomads.

Aang kneels with him, wearing the traditional clothes of his people, and the look on his face almost makes Zuko want to cry. He doesn’t even want to consider what it might feel like, seeing the descendants of his peoples’ killers mourning on their knees. Aang had assured him it was fine, that it wasn’t disrespectful, but it’s got to be overwhelming.

Zuko doesn’t move an inch for the rest of that first autumn night. Most of his people don’t, either. Some families leave as the hour gets late, carrying their children in their arms. Some people stand once the clock hits twelve. Some people, the worst people, don’t kneel at all.

But most of them stay. Most of them carry some kind of flame, heads bowed over it to pay their respects. Most of them mourn people they’ve never met, as penance for their country’s crimes.

It makes sense, in a strange kind of way. An entire nation of spirits needs an entire nation to lead them home.

* * *

Apart from the Day of Mourning, Zuko doesn’t hold vigil for another thirty years.

It’s a luxury, in a morbid kind of way. But it’s a gift he’ll never take for granted; he was born in wartime, and by the time he’d reached adulthood he’d already seen far more death than he ever wanted to. To not hold vigil for thirty years is a privilege that many people have not had.

But Zuko’s forty-six when he holds vigil again. It’s the worst one yet.

According to royal tradition, he’s meant to hold it in the courtyard, but Uncle wouldn’t have wanted that. The courtyard is cold and barren, and it’s where he and Azula duelled. Uncle would’ve wanted him to hold vigil somewhere soft and warm and full of life.

Zuko holds vigil alone on the hill, where he and Lu Ten used to play. When he says alone, he means  _ alone _ —no matter how much his guards protest for his safety, he refuses to allow anyone else to come. Eventually, they let him go. Reluctantly, of course, but they still let him go.

Zuko’s vigil for his uncle is a little unorthodox. For instance, vigils don’t usually involve pouring a cup of tea. Nor do they involve filling another cup with dry tea leaves, then setting the cup on fire.

It’s a gentle, warm kind of fire, the same kind that Uncle always used to dry off Zuko’s clothes. It eats away at the tea leaves slowly, and the smoke that rises from the teacup smells like ginseng and jasmine.

It’s exactly what Uncle would’ve wanted.

* * *

Suki’s vigil is like nothing he’s ever done before. He does it in a temple on Kyoshi Island, kneeling before two iron statues of Avatar Kyoshi herself. She stares down at him like she’s judging his fire for not being big enough to honour one of her noble warriors.

A noble warrior indeed. Suki had gone out fighting, like she always said she would. The Earth Queen is a new ruler, after all, and assassins love to hunt new rulers.

Assassins also love to hunt those who protect new rulers. Suki, of course, was one of them.

* * *

Zuko’s second-last vigil takes place somewhere entirely unsuited for it.

He holds it at the South Pole. Despite Katara’s protests, he stays outside throughout the night, staring out towards the ocean with a flame cupped in his hands. Aang sits with him too, despite the fact that the Water Tribes don’t have vigil as part of their traditions. 

Sokka had always joked that he’d become an amalgamation of all four nations. He’d joked about it all the way up until the day someone killed him for it, because Councilman Sokka was a dangerous man with dangerous enemies. 

He’d died with his boomerang in one hand and his sword in the other. As it turns out, poison arrows can travel faster than even the best Water Tribe warrior.

Zuko and Aang hold their vigil, and Zuko thinks that, just maybe, Yue glows a little brighter. He remembers being sixteen, on a raft in the middle of the Northern Sea, and keeping secrets with the moon. Maybe she’ll continue keeping them all the way up until he joins Sokka, and then they’ll talk amongst themselves like they’ve known each other all their lives.

Whatever the case, the moon holds vigil, and Zuko holds it with her.

* * *

The last vigil Zuko ever holds happens in two parts. First, there is the national one—the death of the Avatar is something that the entire world will mourn, and the Fire Nation is no different. Then, there is the private one—the one where he sits, alone in his room, holding a fire for his best friend.

Toph and Katara are welcome to join him, but neither of them do. Katara is holding her own sort of vigil: one that involves not silence and fire, but whispered prayers to the moon. Aang’s body is wrapped in a Water Tribe shroud on an Air Nomad mountain, but Katara will pray like he’s lying in front of her.

Toph’s vigil probably involves an extraordinary amount of alcohol. She’s had experience with  _ that  _ particular ritual thrice before: once for Uncle, once for Suki, and once for Sokka.

Zuko’s private vigil is a simple thing. Aang would never have wanted an extravagant affair, so Zuko doesn’t give him one. And it feels a bit like he’s sixteen again, having just returned from Ba Sing Se.

The difference is that, this time, the vigil is definitely needed.

* * *

_ The vigil for Fire Lord Zuko takes place on the third day of summer. He dies, they say, from old age; passing in his sleep, as peaceful in death as he was in life. _

_ When Toph hears this, she snorts. Zuko was anything but peaceful. His reign was, certainly, but Zuko himself was one of the least peaceable people she’s ever met. _

_ Was. Zuko is a was, now, the same way Aang and Sokka and Suki are. When Katara finds Toph at the funeral, they grip each other’s hands and silently wonder which one of them is going to be left alone in the end. _

_ The vigil is a national affair. The entire country mourns him, the man who stopped the war.  _

_ Katara isn’t a firebender. Neither is Toph. All they can do is light one torch each, and kneel in the courtyard until morning comes. _

* * *

Somewhere in the Fire Nation, a woman is holding vigil.

She’s old. They’re all old, these days. She’d heard about the deaths of the others: the nonbender girl. The Water Tribe boy. The Avatar.

And now, of course, the Fire Lord.

She’s never held vigil before. Not a proper vigil, not one that lasts all through the night. There are many, many lost souls in her wake, but before now, she has not once held full vigil.

There’s a first time for everything, she supposes.

The night is cold and harsh, but the fire keeps her warm. She thinks about how no one will do this for her when she’s dead. She thinks about how they don’t even know she’s alive, much less where she is. 

As the sun begins to rise, she wonders how Zuzu would feel, if he knew his soul had been led home with blue fire.

The new day begins. Azula ends her brother’s vigil.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna be honest, this wasn't my favourite piece of writing. Oh well. It's here anyway.
> 
> On another note, Cause and Effect won't be updating until the end of the week because I have exams :( . However, once we get to the weekend, updates (both to the fic and to the series) should come a lot faster! Similarly, if anyone here is following the [insert title here] and the fire lord, the next chapter should be up sometime around the weekend.


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